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What kind of learner are you?

I am a self-learner rather than having somebody teaching me at the front of a class. I love hands on activities and am visual so both tutorials and videos work for me....memory exercises are bad, bad, bad ... I have problems remembering facts and figures and getting them into my long term memory. I absolutely love math though, it's cool.

I do best with text and pictures...and of course practice, practice and more practice! I like watching a video to get an overall idea about something, but when I'm really trying to grasp a process, I need to read about it.

Definitely reading and doing... I teached myself many things by tutorials in the web or by books. For example at last I got a sewing machine and I bought a book called "Nähen für Dummies" (Sewing for dummies) - and yes, it works!

For the most part I am a visual learner, often if I see how something is done, then I can do it.
But I also like to mess around with things myself. Written instructions depending on what it is, not so good without first seeing.

I am definitely a visual learner. If a tutorial is written, and has illustrations I can pick things up quite easily. Also if I can practice hands on. I don't do well listening to directions because it's harder for me to concentrate that way.

Probably a combination of visual and hands-on. Anything but auditory! My best learning process is to watch someone do whatever I'm wanting to learn once or twice. If it is really complicated, I'll write notes of the sequence and steps. Then I work my way through it. It works best for me if tutor prompting only comes if I've made a mistake or have skipped something rather than if they tell me too soon. Then I go do it on my own, asking questions only if I get stuck. 2-3 times though a complex process usually is enough.
All bets are off, though, if I don't get to see it done properly, or if I have to work from a non-interactive source like a video or instruction list. Then it just depends on if that style of instruction clicks with how my mind thinks.

To me it's amazing how many of us have similar learning styles. I know this isn't a officially type survey by the pros but it makes you wonder why they teach the way they do... throwing a lot of words at kids/people and expecting them to retain 95% of the information to get an A in school... just sayin'

Many years ago, I found the BEST instruction manual for a computer program EVER. Don't laugh, but it was for Word 2.0! It had structured, step-by-step lessons with plenty of screenshots, and a disc with sample files so that you could follow along - and it made me realise THAT is how I learn best:

Read, see, do... and then reinforce with a video & a cheat sheet. (I don't want much, do I!)

Never read any instructions, ignore all guidelines and advices. Start doing the work, use my logics, experiment, good ol' trial-and-error method. Fail completely, cry out in frustration miserably. Grab those instructions, study them carefully, have an epiphany and voila - it's done, made, conquered. At the face of a next challenge, repeat the hole process. I never learn. It's just more fun this way

@Paddy - you're a lot like my daughter in that she never reads instructions, she just starts playing around with a new program or camera and experiments until she works out how to use it. I wish I could be more like that, but I have to read and re-read, then tentatively try things one at a time until I'm familiar enough with that one thing. Only then can I go onto the next thing! Maybe it's a confidence issue...

Haha, Robyn! I'm afraid in my case it's more like a PTSP- result of being surrounded by tons of rules, laws, regulations while operating in a professional capacity. So when ever i can, i like to discard them & go totally freestyle

I am a hands on kind of girl. I need to see, touch, and read. I love videos however I do like instructions on paper. Just the other night I had on my iPad a crochet pattern because I couldn't find my paper one and my hubby who is a Techie guy thought it was great I was using my iPad for the pattern however it was very difficult because I like the crinkle of the paper pattern to touch (which I finally found my paper pattern the next night) and using the iPad was heavier than paper! Yep I'm a hands on kind of gal, LOL!!

For scrapbooking, I'm a gawking-at-it learner. LOL I'll study something visually and figure out how to create it in my head, then test it out. When I first started scrapbooking, though, I found text instructions with screenshots easier to follow than video tutorials. Then again, I use Paint Shop Pro, whereas most people now use Photoshop. So, yeah, videos of PS don't help me much anyway.

I am a visual, kinestinic learner. I need to see it done and then I need to do it myself to learn it. Lecture style classes have never ever worked for me. If you tell me something, I will generally forget it within 5 minutes lol! But if you show me something and then let me try it out for myself, I will master it quickly.